Facebook said to be eyeing China

Facebook Inc, owner of the world’s most popular social-networking service, has held talks with potential partners about how to gain a foothold in China, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The discussions had been exploratory and might not result in an agreement, said the person, asking not to be identified as the talks were private.

Entering China would give Facebook access to the world’s largest Internet market, with more than 457 million Web users. Chinese nationals wanting to get on the social network rely on private-network services to circumvent firewalls that bar access to information the government deems inappropriate.

“We are studying and learning about China, as part of evaluating any possible approaches that could benefit our users, developers and advertisers,” Facebook said in an e-mailed statement.

Facebook, with more than 500 million users, aims to expand in other parts of the world to add members and advertisers. CEO Mark Zuckerberg visited China in December and met Internet companies, including Baidu Inc and Sina Corp. He also met Wang Jianzhou, chairman of China Mobile, who said the pair discussed “the possibility of cooperation” in China.

Zuckerberg, however, said he was on a vacation to the Asian nation.

In February, Facebook said it was opening an office in Hong Kong. While the aim is to focus on Taiwan and Hong Kong, the location brings Facebook closer to advertisers in China, where Susquehanna International Group predicts the online advertising market to triple to almost $13 billion by 2014.

China, which bans pornography, gambling and content critical of the ruling Communist Party, blocks websites including Facebook, Twitter and Google’s YouTube, which don’t follow the nation’s self-censorship rules. Google pulled its search engine out of China last year after deciding against censoring its content.